


something else altogether

by Xparrot



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Angst, Conversations, Fanfiction of Fanfiction, M/M, Present Tense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-27
Updated: 2014-02-27
Packaged: 2018-01-13 22:30:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1242913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xparrot/pseuds/Xparrot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One year later, listeners - one single year, since the final Game which wasn't a game at all ended. One year ago, that the Capitol fell...</p><p>(unofficial sequel to SailorPtah's <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1179459">"He Says He Volunteers As Tribute"</a>)</p>
            </blockquote>





	something else altogether

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [He Says He Volunteers As Tribute](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1179459) by [ErinPtah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErinPtah/pseuds/ErinPtah). 



> So SailorPtah wrote [a marvelous thing](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1179459). And then said a thing to me in comments, and then I wrote this thing, because although the original story ends perfectly, I couldn't get those versions of Carlos and Cecil out of my head.
> 
> Posted with permission because SailorPtah is lovely like that.
> 
> (Please excuse any discrepancies with the Hunger Games 'verse; I only read the books once a couple years ago so my memory is hazy.)

_One year later, listeners—one single year, since the final Game which wasn't a game at all ended. One year ago, that the Capitol fell, and we learned again the taste of freedom, as bitter and as sweet as it can be..._

* * *

Cecil has lost weight, is the first thing Carlos notices. It's been nearly five months since he last saw the man, and he's gone from fashionably svelte to nearing gaunt, dark hollows around his pearl-white eyes.

It angers Carlos. He knows Cecil has access to enough food, here at the Capitol. But there's been a trend lately among some of the Capitol-born, to starve themselves in a fucked-up form of solidarity, a tribute as it were to past tributes, to the districts that are going hungry now while the nation's infrastructure is painstakingly rebuilt. It's sickening and pathetic and it makes Carlos furious, to see the knobs of Cecil's bird-bone wrists under his tunic's lace trim. Cecil should know better than this.

He doesn't say anything about it at the celebration. There's no chance, between the press of so many people, manically giddy as they raise toast after toast, drinking to forget for this one night how difficult everything still is.

Even now, Carlos can't bring himself to drink anything but water. And he doesn't get more than glimpses of Cecil through the crowd. Cecil's a celebrity even now, one of the first Capitol-born to join the revolution, at least publicly. His voice is still known to all of Panem, in daily broadcasts reassuring everyone that they are still here, still alive, that they can survive another day, whatever hardships they face.

It's a lie, of course, but one Cecil always excelled at. Even those in the arena fell for it, sometimes. 

Carlos knows better. But it's helpful all the same. It gives people hope, hearing Cecil. Every district Carlos has worked in over the last months, people listen to that broadcast. A lot of the smashed video screens haven't been restored, but they still have radios.

So Cecil spends the gala surrounded by adoring fans, Capitol-born sticking close in hopes of his good standing rubbing off on them, District-born huddling up to the reassurance of his voice. While as Carlos is just another revolutionary, just another tribute, reminder of the tragedies everyone wants tonight to forget. This celebration is not commemoration of the past but of the future. He can't get close to Cecil amid the crowd, and doesn't try.

Not until late in the evening, when enough revelers have drifted away or passed out, and the clot around Cecil thins enough for Carlos to signal him. They haven't used the gestures for a year, but when Carlos signs, _Meet me, in the lot_ , Cecil nods understanding.

Half an hour later he arrives. The paved courtyard is empty, but for the scattered, rusting hulks of personal vehicles which haven't had fuel for over a year. Carlos is sitting on one such broken shell, watching the city's lights, their shimmering fragmented by rolling blackouts. He tenses when he hears the approach, then feels his spine relax before he consciously identifies the sound. After over a decade his instincts recognize those footsteps, even with the dragging stutter of the limp now.

This lot was a rendezvous point during the climax of the uprising. To Carlos's knowledge it was never discovered, but Cecil pauses at the edge of the pavement now, as if looking for a trap. Even he learned caution eventually.

"I'm the only one here," Carlos calls to him, and Cecil walks over, leaning on his cane. More heavily than he was at the party, Carlos notices, and tells him, "Sit down," indicating the clear spot next to him.

Cecil hesitates again, then sits, as far from Carlos as he can, on the limited surface of the vehicle's hood. In the city's glimmering lights, his face is drawn, pinched with hunger or lined with pain.

Or maybe it's just age, catching up with him after however long, without regular rejuvenation treatments. Carlos frowns at him. "Are you eating enough?" he asks.

"Mostly." Cecil's voice is soft. Not weak; but not the assured announcer's voice Carlos heard on the radio just this evening, as the train pulled into the station. "When I can. If there's enough for me."

"There should be enough," Carlos says, his temper rising again. "Starving yourself here won't help anyone out there, you know. You have to eat when you can. Even when others can't."

"Of course, I know that." Cecil sounds surprised that Carlos would tell him so. "But I wasn't here. And when that avalanche cut off the supply trains in District Twelve..."

Damn it, Carlos had forgotten. He'd been against the idea of a grand tour anyway, but he hadn't been here to stop it. And it had done some good. Carlos had seen for himself how people had rallied, hearing Cecil's impassioned accounts of all the Districts rebuilding.

But the trains had been cut off for four weeks, during Cecil's final stop in Twelve. He'd kept broadcasting through it, recounting the united efforts of citizens from four districts to unbury the pass. He'd mentioned things were tight, awaiting the trains; but that spirits were high. The people of Twelve were strong, he'd said.

He _hadn't_ made it clear how tight, Carlos thinks now, looking at his face. "You've been back here more than a month."

Cecil shrugs. "I don't eat like I used to. But I'm well enough now." He pauses, then says, "You were right; I shouldn't have gone on that tour. I was a burden to them. One more mouth to feed, and I couldn't even use a shovel."

Carlos is still angry. Maybe even angrier now, lacking as clear a target. "You should've brought enough food for yourself. Stocked up—you know how poor Twelve is."

Cecil's eyes are wide and white. "We did. More than we needed, for all the crew, and gifts besides. But it wasn't enough—and there were children, Carlos, so many children..."

"Because you cared _so much_ for hungry children, all those years of the Games!" Carlos cries. It's satisfying for a moment, how the flaring anger heats his chest; then it burns out, leaves him charred and hollow.

Cecil doesn't reply for a moment. His face is calm, expressionless as Carlos has rarely seen it. "No," he says at last, and his voice is the announcer's, cleanly enunciated and diligently honest. "I didn't, did I."

Carlos almost wants Cecil to deny it. To argue that he of course he'd cared, in his way, as much as his position and upbringing and society would allow him to. To point out how he'd protected Carlos for all those years, for no recompense but Carlos's untouched presence. To say that he's really no different now than he was then, the same man, older and crippled but fundamentally unchanged, in spite of all that's happened.

Carlos clenches his fists, that Cecil doesn't say any of that. He struggles to draw breath, the air too dry around him, scorched by his own anger. He gropes for his water bottle, upends it down his throat. The Capitol's water is fresher than he's used to, untainted, and he almost chokes on its cleanness, gasping as he gulps.

Cecil's hand is on Carlos's arm, his voice in Carlos's ears, telling him, "You're here, not there. No one will ever be in an arena again, thanks to you."

Carlos lowers the drained bottle, takes a steady breath. He looks at Cecil's hand, resting on his arm, and says through his raw throat, "You aren't wearing your ring."

Carlos isn't wearing his own—hasn't since shortly after the revolution ended. At the very beginning, when sentiments against the old Capitol were running so high, that proof of loyalty to a tribute revolutionary was more vital to Cecil than any service he'd done. But such a shield became less important as people woke from their dreams of vengeance to find they needed as many hands as they could get, if they wanted a chance of rebuilding.

Carlos still has the ring. The platinum could potentially be valuable, either to sell, or as a chemical catalyst. He wonders sometimes if Cecil chose it for that purpose.

Cecil kept wearing his own. But his hand is bare now, as he pulls it back. "I had the marriage annulled," he says.

"What?" Carlos says.

"Five months ago," Cecil says, as if he didn't hear the question properly. "Shortly after you left. I sent you a letter; I guess it didn't make it?"

"Why?"

Cecil shrugs. "I'm not sure; the postal service has been a tad spotty, since—"

"Not that," Carlos says. "Why the annulment?"

"It was only a formality anyway," Cecil says. "Since the records hall was destroyed. But I wanted for it to be certain, in case anything is ever recovered later."

"But _why_ ," Carlos demands.

Cecil blinks, moon-blank eyes briefly eclipsed. "Because it wasn't necessary anymore, for your protection, or mine."

Of course it isn't. Over a decade of performed romance and publicized affection, no longer needed; the play is over, along with the Games.

It's an irony, Carlos thinks, or maybe just tragedy, that this might be the first time Cecil has ever personally, willfully hurt him.

Oh, he's been hurt by Cecil many times—ten years of Cecil narrating the deaths of children under his care; ten years of flashbacks and trauma triggered by Cecil's voice, Cecil's eyes, Cecil's clothes.

But that was because of what Cecil was, what he had been a part of. Not anything Cecil had done himself. Cecil who in ten years had never laid a hand on Carlos, except to help him; Cecil who, outside of interviews and civic displays, had only ever asked one thing of Carlos: _"What do you need me to do?"_

This, however..."You didn't even ask me—!"

"I didn't think you'd care to talk about it?" Cecil say, frowning, not upset but puzzled. "So since I already knew what you wanted..."

" _No_ ," Carlos tells him. "No, you don't get to decide what I want, not anymore."

"Not ever," Cecil says, no longer confused. "I never could decide that. What you got—that I could, at one time. But not what you wanted. That much, at least, I always knew."

"But you could ask me," Carlos says. He's shivering a little, and not only because the night is chilly and getting cooler. He feels like he did the first night, in Cecil's lavish apartments. The building is leveled now, but he can remember clearly the paintings on the walls, the plush carpet. Cecil watching him so closely, desire lighting his eerie eyes, so strange and malevolent; but his hands had remained at his sides. "You could ask me what I want, instead of just assuming."

"...Yes," Cecil said, after a long moment. "I could." And, after even longer, "I should."

Carlos waits, but Cecil doesn't say anything else. At last Carlos loses his patience, says, "Well?"

"Did you want our marriage annulled?" Cecil asks, so softly it barely crosses even the arms-length between them to Carlos's ears. So softly that Carlos only can hear his dread because he's so very familiar with all the myriad shades and varieties of terror. Even if he's never heard such fear in Cecil's voice before.

Carlos takes a breath, lets it go. His mouth is dry, and feels dryer when his fingers curl around his empty water bottle, his tongue sticking to the roof. 

He thinks of the last five months. Listening to Cecil's broadcast every night. The nightmares were always less, when that voice wished him, wished all of Panem, good night. It doesn't make sense, after everything that voice represented; yet there it is.

"I don't know," he says at last.

He looks at Cecil. In the city's reflected glow, Cecil's eyes are like lanterns. He's leaning toward Carlos, just slightly, maybe just out of habit. His lips are chapped; they would be dry against Carlos's. In spite of this, in spite of his own parched mouth, Carlos wants to kiss them.

He doesn't. But he reaches over, rests his hand on Cecil's knee. He can feel, acutely, the silence around them. No eyes watching them, not a single camera or microphone recording this gesture.

Cecil doesn't move. His skin is warm, under the threadbare velvet of his pantaloons. 

After a moment, Cecil unclips his own water bottle, holds it out. Carlos takes it, drinks long and deep, though not enough to drain it. When he lowers it, Cecil is looking up. Not at the lights on the buildings, Carlos doesn't think, but the sky beyond, the stars veiled behind the city's electric ambience. And beyond them, the void of space, clear and cold and limitless. You could shout a thousand questions, hurl ten thousand accusations or a hundred thousand confessions into the vacuum between the stars, and not a one would ever be answered, or echoed back.

Cecil doesn't ask another question, not tonight; and Carlos doesn't answer him, not tonight. Tomorrow, perhaps. Tonight, he sits and looks up at the starless sky, and says nothing.

Though when Cecil shifts closer, to cautiously, carefully lean his head on Carlos's shoulder, Carlos understands exactly what he means.


End file.
